Mean Streets (Special Edition) (DVD)

...his semi-autographical first proper feature, Mean Streets. This would serve as the foundation of the cult of Martin Scorcese and establish his most favoured genre; crime dramas.

Set in early 1970s Little Italy, Charlie (Harvey Keitel) is a religious sinner, a man who feels a strong obligation to look out for his degenerate and dangerously in-debt friend, Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro). He has contacts in high places, including his mobster ...
...Charlie to stay away from. Mean Streets is a film rife with sub plots, rather than one main storyline. It's a study of life in Little Italy, and Charlie's affections for two outsiders from the community. He feels he must do the right thing, but the moralistic question comes in of what the right thing really is.

Mean Streets is an example of how a great artist structures his work; by incorporating personal experience into it, an aspect ... more

For all directors, more specifically mainstream ones, their journey to the top has to start somewhere. Martin Scorcese has always favoured bringing out films with the sorts of people he knew in his youth in Little Italy. It comes out in all of his films in one way or another, but most prominently in his semi-autographical first proper feature, Mean Streets. This would serve as the foundation of the cult of Martin Scorcese and establish his most favoured genre; crime dramas.

Set in early 1970s Little Italy, Charlie (Harvey Keitel) is a religious sinner, a man who feels a strong obligation to look out for his degenerate and dangerously in-debt friend, Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro). He has contacts in high places, including his mobster uncle (Cesare Danova), but behind closed doors is his passionate relationship with Johnny Boy's epileptic cousin, Tereasa (Amy Robinson) who the mobsters warn Charlie to stay away from. Mean Streets is a film rife with sub plots, rather than one main storyline. It's a study of life in Little Italy, and Charlie's affections for two outsiders from the community. He feels he must do the right thing, but the moralistic question comes in of what the right thing really is.

Mean Streets is an example of how a great artist structures his work; by incorporating personal experience into it, an aspect which audiences can relate to, and because Mean Streets is so thoroughly Martin Scorcese, it has this effect. It's raw, gritty, unrelenting look into the life of Italian-Americans. He brings to life this array of vivid characters, influenced by the people he knew and of course, himself. Martin Scorcese is a religious man who considered becoming a priest before he was a director, and we see the same sorts of qualities in Charlie. Religion for him is an escape from potentially bad occurances, so he attends Church to be rid of any guilt or fear. The outcome of the film, however, turns out to be quite different. Furthermore, period music, hand picked by Scorcese, holds large standing in the film. Scorcese invented in his films -- and this started in Mean Streets -- the effect of having music define atmosphere and mood in scenes. The setting itself is something that Scorcese couldn't have been more comfortable with; it's set in Little Italy, and filmed in Little Italy, so the incidental clutter of daily life could almost be a documentary. Mean Streets is as authentic as films get, with complex characters, raw and graphic situations, and real settings.

The performances in Mean Streets are amongst Keitel and De Niro's best, despite being their earliest. Harvey Keitel aptly plays a god (and mafia) fearing man, yet one who is charismatic, intelligent and reflective, as well as believably loyal. On the other end of the spectrum, is Robert De Niro, who similarly is charismatic, but alternatively ignorant, stupid and aggressive. The incessant bullshit that he rambles out to Keitel is pulled off wonderfully by De Niro, showing how versatile he is in comparison to the many roles he has played where he is brooding and quiet.

Goodfellas is considered the definitive Scorcese movie. However, when one has seen Mean Streets, which is a much more gritty, structured version of Goodfellas, the former almost comes across as a spoof, with extreme characters and a polished storyline. It can be argued that the rough edges and lack of polish Mean Streets has, that this serves as an advantage, and that Goodfellas is the superior film, but Mean Streets is more intriguing. It's a film that gets by on charisma rather than violence, serving to be a highly compelling and powerful experience. People may find this boring, especially because it's more of a social drama than a crime drama, but true lovers of Martin Scorcese will revel in Mean Streets. We see in it the master of crime at his most raw, personal and matter-of-fact with one of the best films of the 1970s.

An engrossing, gripping film that illustrates for the viewer several things of what was to come in Scorcese's films; loyalty, betrayal, complex love, and a dead end situation that leads to a dramatic climax ... yet in Mean Streets it's at its most raw.  

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